Derek Charke is irresistibly attracted to the North. In 2006 he found himself in the Yukon, dogsledding with the Kronos Quartet. For a composer with a love of the Arctic it doesn’t get better, or more surreal, than this. A few days earlier he had been in a Whitehorse hotel room where Kronos was rehearsingContinue reading “Derek Charke”
Author Archives: Musicworks
Years
Years is a sound installation for modified record player that examines the disparity between the experience of time passing and time as an objective quantity. The piece uses a turntable to “play” a vinyl-Lp-sized cross section of a tree. A camera fitted with a microscopic lens replaces the needle on the record player’s tone arm. DuringContinue reading “Years”
Paris, France
On June 21, 1982, the French Ministry of Culture introduced the first Fête de la Musique (meaning celebration/feast of music, and a homophone of Faites-musique—make music), a large street party where musicians reignite ancient pagan solstice rituals in spontaneous concerts featuring amateur and professional musicians from all genres. Noise and drinking restrictions are relaxed, andContinue reading “Paris, France”
Havana, Cuba
What does a city sound like whose history spans periods of colonial opulence, Mafia casino decadence, and a dying communist revolution? The habanera, the salsa, and reggaeton. Havana’s storied past has produced a musical culture as varied and deep as the sociopolitical eras that it has survived. During the nineteenth century Havana gave birth toContinue reading “Havana, Cuba”
Rings of Beijing
I sit staring at the laptop screen in my Beijing hotel room. Writers’ block. Silently trying to formulate words. No sounds enter my consciousness. Only the insistent hum of the laptop. Until my listening body is dropped into a pool of sound. Concentric sonic circles ripple out from the imitation Qing chair. My energy isContinue reading “Rings of Beijing”
Joëlle Léandre
For Joëlle Léandre it all begins and ends with the double bass. After playing the often unwieldy bull fiddle from the age of nine and carefully studying its intricacies, she creates with it sounds so personal that defining them as free music, new music. or anything else, is beside the point. Since the late 1970s, Paris-basedContinue reading “Joëlle Léandre”
Thomas, Farah, and D’Eon
I’m sitting with Thom Gill and we’re talking about his most recent EP Such Is Your Triumph, arguably his most intimate and personal set of recordings to date. In addition to his beautifully hushed and harmonically inventive takes on two gospel songs made famous by the Clark Sisters, the EP also contains several original pieces,Continue reading “Thomas, Farah, and D’Eon”
Philip Glass
Most people get presents or have parties thrown for them on special occasions. Philip Glass, however, was in more of a giving mood as he celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday at the end of January. The candles on his cake marked the start of a remarkable year that has the American composer travelling around the worldContinue reading “Philip Glass”
Binatone Galaxy
Binatone Galaxy is an installation for used cassette players that looks on their obsolescence not as an ending, but as an opportunity to reconsider their functional potential. Superseded by digital audio players as recording and playback devices, cassette players become, in this work, instruments in their own right. The piece takes irreverent delight in disposingContinue reading “Binatone Galaxy”
Nico Muhly
“Rules in cooking are not iron-cast (and, as in any medium of expression, they are often bent or broken by practitioners of talent—but to break rules, one must have rules). They are merely the expression of a well of experience formed and enriched over the centuries, re-examined, modified, or altered in terms of changing needs,Continue reading “Nico Muhly”